Anyone who has been in this sport as an athlete and coach at the highest level for such a long time is going to have a polarizing reputation (especially being a black woman, though many will deny it as a reason).
there are budget issues at all universities... some more than others and yes, non-revenue sports will be the first to go.
that said, T&F is not getting dropped at UCLA. other schools, maybe. but not UCLA
Fair point and to be clear, I’m not trying to stir up misinformation. I’m just sharing what I’m genuinely hearing. I sincerely hope it’s wrong. That said, multiple people saying this are connected and alumni, which makes it hard to dismiss outright. I don’t see why they’d fabricate something like this. Still, until there’s official confirmation, it’s speculation and hopefully speculation that turns out to be incorrect.
I feel fairly confident that I could make one phone call and get a definitive answer. But honestly I would feel stupid saying "I saw something on lets run saying the T&F program is being dropped, is it true?"
The admins may not want to spend the money to make the program great again but there are plenty of non-rev programs they would drop well before T&F.
The other odd thing to me about all of this is there are many many schools struggling with the new financial structure in college sports but it sure is strange that UCLA is the one school that has one of these type of threads started on LR every 6 months or so.
“The UCLA Athletic Department, is considering dropping the Men's and Women's Cross Country and Track and Field program”
This has been known for a while. Mia Brahe-Pedersen was originally going to commit to UCLA before the coaching staff told her the program might not exist in a few years.
It is really easy to prove you are either lying, or ignorantly repeating a lie. Simply search on her name and “official visits”.
Mia never even had a conversation with UCLA, much less a visit, official or otherwise.
What is true, however, is that her father reached out to the then head coach of UCLA in Feb ‘23, while in Albuquerque for the Don Kirby Invite. Mia was the only high school sprinter there and proceeded to break Bianca Knight’s 200 record, and wiped the track with UCLA athletes in the 60 as well. She went on to become the #1 T&F recruit that year.
Bizarrely, UCLA’s coach couldn’t make time to meet with Mia’s family that weekend and never returned their call or invited Mia to learn more about their program. Small wonder he was fired.
L.A. has been the Mecca of Track and Field, Cross Country, Road Racing for over 100 years with more beach runners in one mid-week day than all of the the so-called misnamed "marathon majors" in a year. UCLA, USC, Berkeley, Stanford are the top four Olympic Medal schools in the World. Berkeley and Stanford are majority L.A. students. As a result the alumni ignores the college teams and focuses totally on the Olympic Hopefuls, Olympians, and Olympic Medals.
For what it’s worth, based on my limited interactions with her, I think she’s a decent person. But then, my anonymous opinion is not really any more useful than that of the clown who claimed otherwise.
Hopefully, you have first hand experience with her and can trust that.
The real concern for UCLA track has been recent talk on sports radio that the football program would like to convert Drake Stadium, home of UCLA T&F, into an on campus stadium for football. No insider info but certainly UCLA is in middle of attempts to exit its Rose Bowl contract to play at SoFi.
I feel like this isn't too surprising with the way college football is moving. We need conferences for football & basketball & then regional competition for everything else that doesn't generate revenue. I can see UCLA not wanting to pay to send runners across the country to compete. This isn't a conversation if your meets are pretty much entirely in CA. We need a D3 sports model for smaller sports, or schools will just be content to drop them.
Other than the B1G and NCAA meets, UCLA's meets for 2026 are all on the west coast. The conference alignment doesn't really affect XCTF, travel wise, except for the conference and NCAA meets.
Now for other non-rev sports - like softball, tennis, water polo...team sports with 1v1 setups - yeah the travel is an issue...and some of those sports are more likely to get cut, depending on the level of donations they receive of course.
I feel fairly confident that I could make one phone call and get a definitive answer. But honestly I would feel stupid saying "I saw something on lets run saying the T&F program is being dropped, is it true?"
The admins may not want to spend the money to make the program great again but there are plenty of non-rev programs they would drop well before T&F.
The other odd thing to me about all of this is there are many many schools struggling with the new financial structure in college sports but it sure is strange that UCLA is the one school that has one of these type of threads started on LR every 6 months or so.
I wonder why that is?
Anytime there are a ton of deleted posts in a thread for no reason, it points to one particular person being involved.
I feel fairly confident that I could make one phone call and get a definitive answer. But honestly I would feel stupid saying "I saw something on lets run saying the T&F program is being dropped, is it true?"
The admins may not want to spend the money to make the program great again but there are plenty of non-rev programs they would drop well before T&F.
The other odd thing to me about all of this is there are many many schools struggling with the new financial structure in college sports but it sure is strange that UCLA is the one school that has one of these type of threads started on LR every 6 months or so.
I wonder why that is?
Anytime there are a ton of deleted posts in a thread for no reason, it points to one particular person being involved.
It's pretty pathetic, actually.
Mods be mods.
Besides that, I was surprised Johnny Gray publicly posted the UCLA program was going to get cut. Regardless of what’s going on
The real concern for UCLA track has been recent talk on sports radio that the football program would like to convert Drake Stadium, home of UCLA T&F, into an on campus stadium for football. No insider info but certainly UCLA is in middle of attempts to exit its Rose Bowl contract to play at SoFi.
Thousand of rumors. From buying Santa Monica Airport, VA Westwood Barracks and Cemetary, Malibu Highlands, Piggy Back Yard, to build a Football, Track & Field, Swimming venue. ESPN, Netflix, Nike, Fox Sports, China, Saudi Arabia arfe begging on hands and feet to spend 100 Billions in a day if the Red Tape were lifted by Karen Bass and EIR by the residents. NIMBY is halting progress.